An island community is planning a new tourist trail to an abandoned village that was the first to witness the real-life Whisky Galore ship sinking 75 years ago.
Today marks the anniversary of the SS Politician running aground in 1941 off Rosinish point, on Eriskay, along with its famous cargo of 260,000 bottles of whisky.
The legendary event has already been immortalised by Compton Mackenzie’s 1947 novel Whisky Galore, and the 1949 Ealing Comedy film of the same name.
And now community leaders hope to attract more visitors to the area when the story is remembered later this year with the release of a remake of the film, starring Rab C. Nesbitt actor Gregor Fisher and comedian Eddie Izzard.
“It’s bound to, I would imagine, have an impact,” said Huw Francis, chief executive at Stòras Uibhist, Scotland’s biggest community landowner, managing most of Benbecula, South Uist and Eriskay since a 2006 buy-out.
The community of Rosinish on Eriskay, the closest to the sinking of the SS Politician, was abandoned four decades ago.
But Mr Francis said the group was hoping to bring the community back to life – for tourists and walkers at least.
“You can always do more to attract visitors. We’re working on a project at the moment on a heritage trail,” he said.
“We’ve done the Bonnie Prince Charlie Trail a couple of years ago, which started obviously from Prince Charlie’s Bay in Eriskay going up to Rosinish on Benbeculu, where he left from.
“But there’s another village called Rosinish down on Eriskay, one of the last to be abandoned. It was probably abandoned in the seventies.
“So it has got housing from all the eras of habitation on Eriskay, and we’re looking to do a heritage trail there so people can walk out to it.
“It’s an unusual village – it’s got services but there’s no vehicle access, which is why it was abandoned, you can only walk to it. But it has got electricity and water.”
Last month, the Press and Journal told the story of 86-year-old Mairi MacInnes, one of the last residents on the island to remember the sinking.
She was 12 at the time and recalled a boy from Rosinish turning up at the school to inform pupils that a big ship had come ashore.
Mrs MacInnes revealed that her father was among the islanders to secretly salvage the whisky, saying: “It wasn’t a crime as far as we were concerned – it was going to the bottom of the sea anyway.”